


The Weight Of Your Ribs

by villaingotyourcat



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, POV Second Person, Supernatural Elements, Very loose plot, a bit unhinged, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:34:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28744059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villaingotyourcat/pseuds/villaingotyourcat
Summary: There is a woman in your mirror and you do not recognize her.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 16
Kudos: 59





	The Weight Of Your Ribs

On Monday morning, there is a woman in your mirror and you do not recognize her.

You startle violently, spill a mug of tea down your shirt. The burns like a river, revelations like a channel down your chest are evidence to be studied later in a mirror free of prying eyes. For now, there is only the woman in the mirror and her undignified laughter, and your burn and burn.

“Shut up,” you tell her, and she wipes at her eyes, looks at you like she’s seeing you for the first time.

Which honestly is rude, for she’s the one who has caught you by surprise. How dare she climb into your bedroom mirror and look at you like she can see right through, like she could reach out and touch you. She doesn’t though, and you are glad that she refrains, for she holds you in place with her gaze alone, and you are claustrophobic already, itching with the intensity of it all. You think if she touched you now, you might kill her just to halt the rhythm in your chest, just to taste her blood like honey in your tea.

And you don’t want to kill her yet, not with this curiosity simmering just beneath your skin. You want to ask her anything, everything, but your tongue does not, can not settle. It turns restlessly in your mouth, too large for the space between your teeth. You wonder if she can see it when she looks at you, and it is a thrill-- just the thought of being seen.

It is nice you decide, being looked at. There is looking and there is seeing, but you fear that you are too old to know the difference. The left side of your mattress is sunken like the space beneath your eyes, permanent fixtures to remind you that you are running out of firsts and falling into lasts. It has been a long time since you’ve had a first, so you will let her look until she does not want to look anymore and pretend that it does not matter if she is seeing. 

The moment stretches, and something in her stare changes. You do not yet know the workings of her face, the shift of her eyebrows and the draw of her lips, but you feel the difference before you see it, like she’s got your ribs between her hands and she’s just turned one over to see if the parts she cannot see look like the ones she can. You need to know if she’s done it on purpose, if she’s calculating your push and pull too.

“Are you okay?” you ask, and you’re afraid you’ve wasted one of your questions, not sure how long you have until the spell is broken.

She looks between your body and your bedroom like there’s something she can see that you can’t; you want to turn around and check, but the absence of her image is a steep price to pay and you hoard your currency greedily. But she licks her lips and you almost waste a question-- you’re desperate to see her do it again.

“Wear it down,” she says with a voice steeped in something you haven’t tasted in years.

You listen.

\--

On Tuesday, the woman is not in your mirror until she is.

You very nearly poke your eye out with a mascara wand, and it is such a gory image that you think of it for a little longer, your eyeball skewered on the small brush with messy exit wounds where the bristles diverge from the wand. You wonder how the woman would react to the emptiness of your socket, the way the nerves would dangle from your eye, dying beneath her steady gaze. 

“Do I scare you?” she asks.

“No.” You can’t tell if you’re lying.

She nods solemnly, and you try to nod back, but the motion gives you vertigo and your grasp on reality already feels loose enough. Somehow, you hadn’t thought she’d have this kind of agency. You are the one with questions, and it seems absurd that the woman who has climbed into your mirror should have the right to ask anything.

“Why are you here?”

You spent last night rationalizing and theorizing, and you've convinced yourself that she must be a ghost. You’ve always had bad luck, and it would be pretty unsurprising to learn that you’ve somehow upset an ancient spirit or accidentally triggered some kind of supernatural retaliation. Still, you don’t make a habit of stomping on hallowed grounds or digging up graves or doing whatever it is that attracts ghosts. 

“What would be the fun in telling you that?”

She’s enjoying this, you realize, and the thought unnerves you. It is one thing to kill. It is another to savor the way the blood runs down your wrists, to lick the blade clean when you are finished. 

“How do I make you leave?”

She tilts her head a little, and she’s looking at you again. She’s been looking at you this whole time really, but she’s turning your rib again, counterclockwise to the offbeat of your heart. Round and round it goes, and you feel the vertigo return.

“Is that really what you want to ask me, Eve?

It isn’t.

\--

On Wednesday, you are half naked in your bedroom when she speaks.

“You have very cute underwear, Eve.”

You nearly have a heart attack, tripping over your own feet as you fumble for your shirt. Once you manage to grab it from where it landed beneath the dresser, you discover it’s inside out. She snickers. Apparently you’ve lost the right to privacy in your own home. 

“I’m changing--shit! Turn around or something!”

You duck into the corner, the only space in the room not privy to the watchful eyes of the mirror. From your angle, her face is mostly obscured by the books piled on the edge of the dresser. You are alarmed to notice that she has changed outfits. 

“The little pineapples are so sexy.”

Your underwear suddenly feel ridiculous and you’re desperate to take them off, to tear them to shreds, to cast them into a raging fire, let them burn to black ash. Your hands are halfway to the waistband when you look back up at her. She’s looking around your room, judging all your things, and you almost feel more exposed than when she was looking at your bare collarbones. The thought of stripping with her in the room, though she’s only in your mirror, makes you blush violently, the heat climbing up your chest and licking the sides of your face. So you’ll keep the underwear on and you won’t think about her comments at all for the rest of the day. Easy enough.

You open your mouth to respond but let the words die on your lips. Better to create an awkward silence than risk blurting out something stupid like how much you like the blazer she’s wearing, how interested you are in knowing whether or not she’s wearing anything underneath. 

When you emerge from the corner, you feel stark naked despite the fact that you are fully dressed. It is unnerving, the way she makes you feel with only her lingering eyes.

“I like your clothes even less now that I know what is underneath.”

“Less?”

“They are terrible. I will buy you some that fit much better.”

It takes you a moment to realize what she’s said, and your face must betray you because she laughs loudly, too loudly, like she’s sitting right behind you. You nearly trip again in your haste to ensure she isn’t. You resist the urge to open your closet, check under your bed. She’s just a woman, you remind yourself, not a monster. You almost wish she was; at least it would justify that hammering in your chest.

You aren’t looking at her, but you feel her gaze beneath your skin, taking apart your insides. “Eve, did you think I had no power at all?”

—

On Thursday, you emerge from an MI6 bathroom stall and she’s already in the mirror.

“What are you doing!” you hiss.

There are no feet under the other stalls, but you keep your voice low and furious anyway. You do not know if it would be worse if someone walked in on you shouting at yourself in the mirror or talking to her. 

“I am cutting my fingernails, if you must know. I cannot masturbate when they are this long. And you?”

You choke on your own spit and double over, your cough echoing off the tile walls. Even after you have cleared her throat, you stay bent over. You will not let her see your traitorous face. Even your own trachea conspires against you. As if a pervert in your mirror is not enough for one lifetime. 

“What?” you say, and it does not matter that you’ve composed yourself. It is still a squeak when it leaves your mouth..

“I was only asking what you are doing,” she says, but her eyes disagree. “You do not have to choke yourself over it. Besides, it is much more fun when I am the one doing it for you.”

You don’t disagree, don’t offer a rebuttal. There is no space in your head for denial, not when you’re thinking of her long fingers pressed against your throat, blunt nails teasing blood from the delicate skin. You want her to feel you swallow, guide your spit down with the heel of her pretty hand.

“You can’t be here.”

“I can be wherever I want.”

“So it’s not just me you’re jump scaring in the mirror? Good to know.”

“Are you jealous?”

You’re horrified to realize you are. You’ve never been this kind of woman before; you’ve never had to be. You don’t need to bruise Niko’s skin or tie him to your bed to hold him down. Men like Niko want only to be needed, so you say all the things he wants to hear, let him hold you like the god he isn’t. 

You wear repression like a second skin; it used to chafe against your body and rub in all the wrong places. Now, you’ve learned the rawness of your hands, the tangle of your words as they collide and crash, their echo like a hum in your chest. It is an awful thing, the taste in your second mouth. Your throat is not wide enough, and the saliva is thick going down.

But here, as your reflection mingles with her form, you are afraid of the want that simmers in your stomach, for you know the place where skin meets skin and you will not lose the seam. It has cost you everything to find, still more to keep tucked away from vigilant eyes and probing words.

She looks at you like she’d do anything to undo you, and you’re afraid you might let her. 

“Do not worry, Eve. I am always thinking of you.”

“I bet you tell everyone you haunt that.”

She smiles at you with too many teeth. “You think I am a ghost?”

“I think I must’ve really pissed someone off to end up with you.”

Something you do not recognize passes over her face. Her jaw tightens, and you think of the rows of white teeth shifting like tectonic plates in her mouth. 

“Are you trying to upset me? You will not like it when I am angry.”

And you want so badly to make her furious, to provoke her until she is red in the face and seething. You want to know every variation, every permutation of her features. You want her to shove you back, burst your lips like summer berries, knot her hands in your hair. You want the heat of her breath, the edges of her nails, the points of her teeth.

You try again. “What _are_ you?”

“I am whatever you want me to be.”

When you return to your desk, Elena asks if you’re alright. Apparently, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. 

\--

On Friday, there is a small wrapped box on your bed.

You twist the ribbon between your hands, wonder if any fingerprints would appear if you covered it in dust. You’d be afraid if they did, terrified if they didn’t. Your hands shake as you lift the lid. You don’t know what you’re expecting, but it certainly isn’t a delicately carved glass vial. 

La Villanelle. 

You’re certain it’s perfume until you spritz it into the air before you and lean into the scent. You promptly choke on a cloud of chemicals. You taste it in the back of your throat when you swallow. You turn the bottle over. It’s glass cleaner. Of all the narcissistic, arrogant, self-absorbed-- 

Asshole. 

Still, you turn the bottle over and over, feel the weight of the liquid. It feels good in your hands, cool with sharp edges that leave tiny indentations on the pads of your fingers when you press them into it. 

Your mirror _is_ really dirty. 

You spray the top of the mirror and watch the droplets run down, cutting through your hair and clothes and body. You half-expect her smug face to materialize among the mist, expensive necklines and jewels mottled with cheap cleaner. But she doesn’t, so you hoist yourself onto your dresser and start to wipe the mirror in long, slow stripes.

Your face appears before you in alarming detail, and your arm falls limp with the mirror only half wiped. This close, you are hyper aware of every line on your face, every crease in your skin. Your hair is unruly around you, and it is definitely overdue for a thorough wash. There’s a piece in the back sticking up at an odd angle, a small streak of rebellion despite your best efforts. It’s been a long time since you’ve looked at yourself like this. The longer you stare, the more detached you feel from the woman who stares back. 

So Niko finds you like this, sitting on the vanity, staring at yourself in a half-washed mirror. He speaks, a greeting or something equally mundane and unimportant, but it’s all background noise. Even in her absence, you’re thinking of her eyes, mouth, neck. You can almost see the shadow of her reflection over yours, a touch without touch. 

“Eve?” Niko’s voice is an octave too low, but you’ve always had a good imagination.

You walk him backward against the bed, press him down with both hands. His angles are all wrong, but his body is warm, and he does not fight against you. You see the questions climbing up his throat, so you kiss him with a fervor that is not his to receive. You are not gentle when you undress him, not gentle when you tear into his skin with your teeth. He makes a pathetic noise beneath you, and you nearly gag him for it, nearly strangle him with your bare hands for shattering the illusion. You knock the lamp off the nightstand in your haste to turn it off, silence his protests with your insistent hands.

In your mind, she rolls you over and you roll her over, a wheel that spins in place until you are dizzy and nauseous with the sight and the sounds. _Let me touch you_ , she says. _No, please_ , your voice is desperate and thin, _you’ll ruin me_. _Haven’t I already?_ she says, and you don’t know how to tell her how deep the rot goes, how much further it can go still. _So it’s my turn now_ , you say, _let me take you down with me_.

When you come, she’s watching from the mirror. You bury your face in Niko’s neck to keep from saying her name. 

\--

On Saturday, you can hardly look at her. 

You’re hunched over the desk in your office, your latest theory staining every surface, gory photos, endless reports, your scratchy handwriting climbing the walls. There is an assassin, a boring, plain, male assassin, and you have to know everything. You’ve promised Carolyn you’ll know everything.

He shoots them through the heart every time, cold, impersonal, boring. But it’s something after so much nothing, so you pour over his victims. He does the killing and you do the rhyming, the reasoning. You both have roles to fill. You will not disappoint.

When you look up, she’s in the mirror that you’ve hung in your study. You didn’t let yourself think about the implications when you bought it or when you hung it up or when you glanced in it every other minute, but now that she’s here, it’s all you can think about. You wonder if she knows, if she can tell. 

“You’re a hunter,” she says. 

“I work for MI6.”

It’s not quite defensive, not quite gloating, not quite embarrassed. Or maybe it is. Maybe it’s all three. 

“Those are just words. You hunt people.”

“I track _assassins_.”

“Eve, assassins are people too. I did not expect this kind of discrimination from you.”

She has the audacity to sound smug, morally superior.

“Fuck off.”

“Do you like this? The thrill of the chase?”

“I--”

“Do you like being the predator? Do you like the control?”

“No, of course not. We’re trying to stop them from hurting people. This is not some kind of game.”

“Isn’t everything?”

“You’re delusional.”

“Yes, but so are you.”

It’s a kind of honesty you didn’t expect from her. You have always been the child with a wild imagination, the teenager with a taste for rebellion, the woman with violent fantasies and gory fixations. But she isn’t condemning you like parents, teachers, friends. She’s seeing your delusion through her own. Maybe you’ll cancel each other out. Maybe your combined volatility will cause an eruption, smoke, ash, no survivors. 

“What do you want from me,” you ask.

“To know if you liked your present. I know I liked mine.”

You’re about to tell her you didn’t buy her anything, but you only have to look at her to realize she isn’t talking about possessions.

“That wasn’t for you.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Yes.” You swallow hard.

“It is okay. I am very irresistible.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Do not play dumb, Eve. It doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m trying to focus.”

“So you hung a mirror in here to help you focus?”

_She knows, she knows, she knows--_

“I wanted the room to feel more spacious,” you say, but you choke on the words.

“And somehow I’m the delusional one.”

“Can you be delusional more quietly?

You push some papers aside, run your eyes over a page of notes. As though you are interested. As though any of this matters at all when she’s watching you like this. 

“Are you going to kill him?”

“What?”

“This big scary bad man you are chasing.”

“No! It’s just a surveillance job.”

“Hunters do not just watch.”

“I’m not a--”

“I know what you are. Even if you will not admit it.”

“I won’t admit it because you’re wrong.”

“I did not mean to upset you.”

“That’s exactly what you meant to do.”

“Will you let me watch?”

“You are watching me.”

“Will you let me watch you hunt him?”

“Why?”

“Because I know what I am.”

And you don’t know what to do with that, so you let it settle in the air, wait for the words to grow cold. 

“Is _this_ a game to you?” Your voice is smaller than you want it to be. 

She smiles. She could kill you, you think.

“Oh Eve, This is the best game of all.”

\--

You don’t know how you got here. 

You were in your car, watching the assassin enter a nondescript building. Now, you are in a fancy office with a gun pointed at your chest. You think there were steps between these two points. Maybe they found you, maybe they always knew you were here, maybe they grabbed you, maybe they dragged you here, maybe you fought and kicked and screamed. Maybe you followed the assassin into the office just to see if the killing looks like you’ve always imagined it would. It doesn’t matter now. 

He’s shouting now, in a language you do not recognize. His voice is thick, like there’s something in his mouth that he can’t spit out. You imagine it bobbing up and down on his tongue with every word he says. It makes you want to laugh. You don’t.

“Eve!” 

There’s a massive mirror directly behind the man, framed in gold embossed with swirling details. The mirror fills the wall. She has never looked so small. 

“You have to kill him.”

Her words send a tremor through your body, and you’re afraid he’ll kill you for that alone. He is still shouting. You don’t dare look directly at her. 

“There is a sword behind you. It’s decorative, but it is still sharp. You can grab it with your right hand. He will never see it coming.”

You stare into his eyes, and there is nothing behind them.

“He is going to kill you!”

Your heartbeat is deafening in your ears. It is so hard to focus on anything else. 

“Eve, please!”

You reach for the sword, but it topples out of its stand, clatters to the ground. He is coming closer. His footsteps, your heart, her shouting. You taste death on your tongue, bitter in your mouth, sweet going down. 

He is upon you now, and you can smell his hot breath, feel his cold gun. He could have shot you from across the room, you think distantly, but he has come closer anway. He is laughing now, taunting you with words you cannot understand, but you know what he is saying. Killing is a universal language. Death does not discriminate.

“Eve,” she says, and you choose. 

And then there is blood, so much blood, more than you have ever seen. It is on your hands and in your hair and running down the mirror. He shoots, and the bullet lodges in the wall. He staggers, and the blood keeps coming. You did not know there was so much blood in a body. 

He crumbles, a city in ruin. The light behind his eyes is going out. He is begging brokenly, as if there is something that can be done. Your body starts to thrum. You are drunk on the life that pours freely from him. 

You look up. She’s watching you.

\--

On Monday, there is a woman in your mirror and you do not startle.

“How did it feel?”

There are no greetings, no need for foreplay. 

“Like I killed someone.”

“That is what you did, not how you felt.”

You are sitting in bed with your bare legs tucked under the comforter. It is late, probably. The blinds are drawn. You’ve been waiting for her. 

“Killing people is awful.”

“And do you? Feel awful?”

You advance on her, crawl down your bed, cross the bedroom to lean against the dresser.

“Take off your clothes.”

“Eve--”

“I need to see you.”

Her mouth opens and closes. She undoes a button. Licks her lips. Undoes another.

“Are you going to take yours off too?”

“If I want to.”

“Do you want to?”

“I want you to take your shirt off.”

She abandons the buttons, pulls it over her head. There’s nothing underneath.

“Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“You-- fuck, always you. Can I touch myself?”

“No. You’re still wearing your pants.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“What isn’t fair,” you hiss, “Is making me kill a man.”

“What did you think he was going to do with that gun, Eve? Do you know what he does for a living?”

Her pants are undone, hanging loosely around her hips.

“I should have let him shoot me! It would have been better than this!”

“Better than shouting at me while I’m naked?”

“Better than living and knowing what it feels like to stab a man to death!”

You’re almost pressed against the mirror now, so close your breath has fogged up the place where her face should be. Your knuckles are white, clenched around the edge of the dresser. 

“You feel bad?”

You raise a hand to rest against the spot where hers has settled against the mirror. You swear it’s warm to the touch.

“I feel-- wide awake.”

You feel her turning your rib over. Round and round it goes.

“What do you want, Eve?”

You smile.

“I want to ruin you.”

You shatter the glass.


End file.
